Canada’s top stock market watchdog has ordered Sandy Winick, a Toronto man now at the centre of an alleged international penny stock fraud ring, to pay more than $1 million in penalties for breaking securities laws in Ontario.

The Ontario Securities Commission also ordered Winick’s associate, Gregory Curry, of Aurora, Ont., to pay more than $225,000 in penalties.

Both men are permanently banned from trading securities, acting as directors or officers of publicly traded companies, or becoming investment fund managers or promoters.

“Winick engaged in an ongoing course of deceitful and fraudulent conduct designed to personally enrich himself at the expense of innocent investors,” OSC commissioner James Carnwath wrote in a decision, released Monday.

Curry assisted Winick, Carnwath noted. “During the period he was acting as Winick’s nominee, Greg Curry received substantial funds directly from Winick and from companies Winick controlled,” the commission wrote.

Unlike the international penny stock ring allegations, filed in U.S. court, the OSC penalties deal with three schemes, which were separate but related to each other, involving shares of companies called BFM Industries Inc., Liquid Gold International Corp., and Nanotech Industries Inc.

The commission previously found that Winick used BFM and Liquid Gold, which had no assets or operations, to perpetrate fraud. Winick also distributed securities without being registered and distributed securities without a prospectus, the OSC said.

Curry was listed as director of BFM, but Winick was the directing mind of the company, the OSC determined.

Neither has participated in proceedings by the OSC, which issued a cease trade order against Winick and BFM on April 1, 2011.

The OSC issued findings against Winick and Curry on August 7, 2013.

Winick and Curry were arrested about two weeks later in Thailand after days of being hunted by the FBI on other charges.

Winick, Curry, his son Kolt, and another Canadian, Gregory Ellis, are among nine men facing allegations by the U.S. Justice Department that they ran an international penny stock fraud ring that bilked $140 million from investors around the world.

Winick and the Currys are now in jail in New York. Ellis was arrested in Toronto. His extradition hearing is expected to take place in early 2014.

The U.S. arrests came as a result of a multi-year investigation that involved the FBI and extensive wiretaps.

The indictment alleges that the Canadians, along with five Americans, ran a massive “pump and dump” operation that involved using social media, emails and news releases to inflate worthless shares of companies, then selling them to investors.

U.S. authorities also allege that the ring hit their victims a second time, convincing them to sell their shares or join class action lawsuits, but only after they paid upfront fees or taxes. In some instances, members of the ring pretended to work for the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, according to the charges.

The U.S. allegations have not been heard in court.

In its investigation, the OSC found that from June 2009 to December 2010, BFM, which purported to be in the fish fertilizer business, raised over $360,000 from at least 28 investors in foreign countries.

The sale of Liquid Gold shares to at least four investors raised about $84,800 (U.S.), the OSC found.

The OSC also determined that Winick breached securities law in early 2009 when he instructed Kolt Curry to send out 10,000 letters to investors in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia urging them to exercise warrants to buy more shares of Nanotech.

Kolt sent the letters through his company, American Heritage Stock Transfer (Ontario).

Last week, the OSC ordered Kolt to pay $160,000 in fines and costs for breaching the Ontario securities act in connection with American Heritage Stock Transfer. His wife Laura Mateyak was ordered to pay $2,500. Kolt was permanently banned from trading, acting as a director or officer, investment fund manager or promoter. Mateyak was banned for five years from the same categories.

In its latest decision, the OSC ordered Winick to pay $750,000 for breaching Ontario securities laws, plus another $359,200 in disgorgement of ill-gotten gains. Of that, $78,000 (U.S.) is “jointly payable” with Gregory Curry.

Gregory Curry is also ordered to pay a penalty of $150,000 for breaching Ontario securities laws. Winick and Curry are jointly ordered to pay costs of $50,000.

The OSC has yet to hear allegations against Winick’s former girlfriend, Andrea McCarthy, who was listed as director of BFM and Liquid Gold.